The Fiery Furnace Premiere - Part 5

Well, its finally come altogether. Tonight I heard the soloists, chorus, and orchestra all in the same room. They all sounded fantastic. I am absolutely pleased and really looking forward to the public unveiling tomorrow.

This morning was the first rehearsal with soloists and orchestra. The biggest challenge (and one of the biggest question marks) was the balance with soloists and orchestra. The first run revealed many difficult passages (and a few that worked beautifully). After rehearsal the soloists, Maestro Ling, the assistant conductor, and myself went to Maestro Ling’s dressing room and dug into the details of the piece. During the rehearsal I put post-its at the top of a page where there is something that needs to be addressed. After rehearsal I must have had 35 post-its sticking up from my score. So we went through each post-it and figured out what changes would improve those spots. Many times we simply needed to reduce the strings to one player on a part. Other spots we took out a few instruments. After our 45 minute rehearsal the orchestra librarians left with 3 pages of notes. Later in the afternoon they penciled in the changes to the parts.

By the evening rehearsal, many of the problem spots were fixed and the balance was great. After one run through there were a few more spots to tweak. I also took out one measure (removing only one measure isn’t bad for a 750 measure piece), made some transition spots louder, and tweaked a few tempos. We ratcheted up the final tempo and now the ending really cooks. By the end of my portion of the rehearsal, the piece was in great shape.

I am really excited about the premiere. Many thanks to the orchestra, administration, chorus, soloists, Gary McKercher (director of the chorus), and Maestro Ling. A special thanks to Philip Mann (assistant conductor) who provided a second set of super expert ears. He had his own running list of post-its and was invaluable during each rehearsal. If his conducting is as good as his insight into the finer workings of orchestral sound, he has a bright future.

Much of tomorrow is a down day (until the premiere). I am looking forward to eating lunch at the hotel filmed in Some Like it Hot. The afternoon will include a backstage tour of the train museum in Balboa Park. My dad (my folks came to San Diego for the premiere) is a train nut and has planned this trip since he first heard my piece would be premiered in San Diego.